Periodically I have to write an article on the service of airlines.

    Or I should say the lack of service.

    I bet out of the last 17 flights with United they’ve been late, canceled or something similar at least 15 times. It has been horrible.

    If you don’t fly but once a year you, may be thinking, “yeah so what? You’ll eventually get there.” Well that attitude may work for you but when I’ve been home three days in the last nine weeks, every minute home is precious.

    So you can understand my frustration when I’ve been gone for three weeks and am scheduled to fly home at 11:30 p.m. Friday night and am flying out on Sunday after church, it’s pretty frustrating when you don’t get in and get your luggage until 1 a.m. You get home and in bed by 2 p.m. You’re shot Saturday and head out Sunday. So you have basically no family time at all.

    Okay, let’s fool them and fly in at 8 p.m. on Friday. No problem for United. They had maintenance problems for the zillionth time and it was 1:30 a.m. before I got home again. One instance that really got me mad was when the first leg of my flight was late and I hit Denver late. They gave my seat away even though the connection was late as well. I flat out ran across the airport and made it on time but they wouldn’t let me on. I argued that I had a ticket and they had no right to give my seat away when I had made it on time.

    You might as well be talking to the proverbial wall. Here’s an instance of what I mean. In 2010 I flew to Texas on a deer hunt and flew my venison back in an expensive five-day cooler that was sturdily built. I taped the lid down tight.

    No problem for an Airline trained demolitionist, though. Upon arriving at Boise, I discovered that they had ripped the top off. I tried to be semi-professional but I lost it was when I went to the luggage department and they said there was nothing wrong. After that first sentence I told her that I needed to talk to a supervisor, to which she replied, “that would be me.” I told her to get me someone else but she said that everyone else was gone. “Get on the phone then, because we are done talking.”

    She makes a call and said it looks like there was some minor damage. What! That’s where I had to talk loud enough so the guy on the other end could hear. If you call ripping the top clean off is minor than yes, I guess I did just suffer some minor damage. How do they hope not to cause hard feelings when they tell a customer that a top ripped off is minor damage? Especially when I had really taped it down.

    Now the really frustrating thing to accept is that they charge you for your bags and then act like they’re not responsible for them. Think about it. If you move across the country, you hire a moving company. Upon unloading you discover that they have torn up 100% of your load are late delivering or can’t find it, do you not hold them responsible? Of course you do. And yet airlines are appalled that you would even think about holding them accountable. Unbelievable.

    I understand that business is tough. I understand that costs are high but what does that have to do with trashing my luggage and having zero customer skills?

    Are all airlines like this? No. Decades ago while flying with Southwest, for whatever reason I didn’t have a lock for my gun. The lady at the counter scrounged around and found me one. Wow, what service.

    The other day I was flying back from Miami. Our flight was 10 minutes late getting to Atlanta. For the heck of it we ran to the gate. The counter lady was standing at the gate and said “are you Tom and Tomas?” Uh…yeah. “Well hurry up we’re waiting on you.” What! You didn’t leave us? No, it’s the last flight for us so we held it for you. Wow, I like Trans Air.

    As we wrap up we have to name a winner for the 2012 Flight or Fight award. After pondering over my own experiences, an article that I recently read and various Facebook posts, I’ll have to hands down hand it over to UNITED….we failed.

    (I began this article Monday while on a flight. Coincidentally, as I set here finishing typing I am in Denver waiting on a late United flight. That adds more fuel to the fire).